


Chill

by BradyGirl_12



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), DCU, DCU (Movies), Smallville
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, Established Relationship, M/M, Male Slash, Slash, World's Finest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BradyGirl_12/pseuds/BradyGirl_12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lionel’s chickens come home to roost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Hell's Vengeance"

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Major character death (off-screen). Not Clark or Bruce.  
> Spoilers: For _Traveler_ and _Fracture_.  
>  Original LJ Dates Of Completion: March 20, 20, 2008  
> Original Dates Of LJ Posting: March 21, 25, 2008  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, DC does, more’s the pity.  
> Word Count: 1142 + 478 (Total: 1620)  
> Feedback welcome and appreciated.  
> Author’s Notes: The aria that Lionel is listening to in _Traveler_ and in this story is _The Queen Of The Night_ (It’s never a good sign on Smallville when a Luthor is listening to opera ;) ). Lines from that aria are the chapter titles. It appears my college music appreciation class was good for something! ;)  
>  The additions to Veritas are my own, taken from an idea I had while watching the episode _Traveler_ one night.  
>  All chapters can be found [here.](http://bradygirl-12.livejournal.com/13235.html)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lionel is feeling nervous at the Castle the night of Lex’s funeral.

Lionel took a drink with a shaking hand. The operatic tones of his favorite CD played on, filling the empty mansion with its mournful beauty. Moonlight glittered through the stained-glass windows in the library, creating diamond patterns on the polished floor.

A fire crackled in the fireplace, but Lionel was cold. He had been cold ever since learning of Lex’s death.

Saving Superman.

Saving Clark.

Lionel poured another drink from the cut-glass decanter he held in one hand. How long had it been since Lex had gone down his dark path, a true Luthor?

Too many years.

And yet, at the end, he had performed the final sacrifice, the final redemption. 

Why?

Lionel brooded as he stared into the glass, the amber light swirling in crystal. The funeral had been well-attended. The corporate types hadn’t dared stay away, and Clark? Why had he been there at all? With Kara, Chloe, and Lana? Oliver Queen had been there, with his live-in love, Dinah Lance, and Bruce Wayne and his young ward. There were others whom Lionel hadn’t recognized as old friends of Lex’s or his own.

Not that he’d ever had any friends.

He twisted the glass around in his hands. Friends had been baggage or a commodity to be used. Friends like Swann and Teague and the Queens…all easily disposable. 

Among others.

Lionel drank again, poured again. It was going to be a very long night.

A sound at the window caught his attention, but he dismissed it as the wind. Autumn nights were cold and windy.

The fire didn’t even warm him.

The aria crested, filling him with pain, loss, and a restlessness that was strange to him. He was a man of purpose, of action, not of philosophy. Lex had been more inclined for the philosophical, the artistic. 

What had happened to the man who had first come to Smallville and had made friends with Clark Kent? 

And why had he been Clark’s friend, in the end, after all that had happened between them?

It was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Not since that day when Kara had freed Clark from the Kryptonite prison in which Lionel had put him. 

For his own safety.

And if Clark believed that, he had this bridge in Brooklyn…

The expensive liquor burned down Lionel’s throat. He should have just picked up a bottle with a screw cap from the local liquor store, for all he was appreciating this. 

Another sound.

He was getting up to investigate when the window burst open.

“Batman?!”

The Dark Knight perched on the windowsill, cape billowing out behind him, darkness cutting off the moon as the soprano sang pure, clear notes. Cold wind gusted through the room, entering Lionel’s bones.

“Lionel Luthor.”

The voice was rasping, guttural, scraping along a decaying brick wall. 

“What do you want?” Despite his best effort, Lionel’s voice shook slightly. 

“I come for your reckoning, Luthor.”

Lionel took another swig. “Your theatrics don’t frighten me, Bat. Go back to Gotham where you belong. Smallville is not your place.”

“It _is_ my place.” The Batman drew out an old, leather-tooled journal from his cape. “You’re a very fortunate man, Lionel. Oliver wanted to kill you years ago when Clark told him you’d killed his parents. I can’t say as I blame him, but Clark talked him out of it. Ever the Boy Scout.” The journal’s clasp was unlocked and the book opened. “Did you know that Lex had been doomed almost from the start?”

“If you’re going to start talking bad blood nonsense…”

“No, Lionel.” The Batman turned the pages of the journal. “The meteor shower affected him more than he knew. He was a meteor…freak…as the term goes, though all anyone ever knew was his ability to heal faster than normal. Turns out that the intense burst of radiation affected his brain, as it always eventually does to the meteor-infected. He felt a darkness in him as he grew up, but he thought that came from you.” The smile chilled Lionel’s already-cold body. “Turns out his brain cells were infected, half-dormant, half-active. He was able to become friends with Clark…the best of friends and more…and then he was wrenched away, twisted and dying in the darkness.”

Lionel poured another drink. “Did he tell you all that?”

“He wrote it in a journal he kept. He didn’t remember writing it. He was blacked-out most of the time. Clark always told me he had good in him. Said Alexander lived in him.” The Batman noticed the expression on Lionel’s face. He probably missed nothing. “He never stopped hoping, believing. I guess he was right about Lex. Lex saved him, and died for him.” The cowled eyes looked at Lionel. “How he ever came from a bastard like you is one of life’s mysteries.”

Lionel felt fear trickle down his spine as the music thrummed. He gripped the glass tightly. “Clark is naïve, even after all these years.”

“Oh, no doubt, there’s a streak of genuine naivete in him. But he did say that he saw Lex’s memories that time he was in his head.” The pages kept turning. “Saw you.”

An owl hooted somewhere in the woods.

“Said you bullied a very little boy over some briefcase being opened.” Pages turning. “Said you verbally and physically abused your own son, until he gave it up that his mother had opened the briefcase, then you assaulted her.” The voice was almost conversational despite its rasp. Lionel felt the fear increase. “Clark told me that Lex’s mother was cold to him, just got up and walked away. Little wonder he was so screwed up, with parents like that.”

Lionel started to inch back toward the fireplace poker. “Why are you so interested?”

“Oh, come now, Lionel. I’m interested in many things.” He stopped turning pages. “This journal of Dr. Swann’s…the one his daughter gave Clark before she was killed…it tells of Veritas, the organization that came together to protect the Last Son of Krypton after he arrived in the first meteor shower, and the people involved. You, Dr. Swann, Edward Teague, Robert and Laura Queen.” The trees swayed in the wind outside. “You had them all killed.” A black gloved finger traced words on the page. “Right after plans had been made to admit two new members.”

“And who might that be?” Lionel pretended to scoff as he tried to get closer to the poker.

“You know who Superman is. You know who Green Arrow is.” The white-lensed eyes bored into him. “You know who I am.”

Lionel’s fingers brushed the poker.

The voice grew ice-cold.

“The two new members were…Thomas and Martha Wayne.”

Lionel’s fingers grasped around the poker as a burst of cold wind swept into the room and the Batman moved as the aria reached a crescendo, crashing all around them.


	2. "Destroyed Be Forever"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regrets laced with tears.

It was a cold, crisp day, golden in its autumn glory. The fields were golden with the last of the summer corn, hay wrapped up in bales, farmers getting ready for winter. Smallville had its rhythms of life and death that even the meteor showers could not fully eradicate.

The town’s cemetery was small but held graves from generations past. Bruce walked past the neatly-kept headstones, pausing at the Kent headstone, surrounded by so many other Kents, and said a silent prayer in honor of Jonathan. He moved on, spotting the tall, dark-haired man at the most elaborate headstone in the cemetery. 

Bruce joined Clark at the grave. Leaves swirled around their heads as trees bent and swayed in the wind.

“I wish I’d known sooner, Bruce.” Clark’s voice was full of regret. “Lex…he suffered his entire life because of me. The meteors destroyed him that day, made him a ticking time bomb.”

Bruce put a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.” He sounded sad. “Sometimes our choices don’t matter, Clark. Sometimes it really is destiny.”

“I know.” Clark’s fingers entwined with Bruce’s. “I wish I could have helped him, though. He was so different when he first came to Smallville. Even our rift…I still couldn’t understand why he became so twisted, so evil in so short a time…I guess now we know.”

Bruce remained silent, remembering two friends from childhood days and regretting life’s ironies.

Clark sighed. “Though I suppose even it the meteors hadn’t hit, being raised by Lionel would have been three strikes against him. What I saw in his memories…”

“I know.” Bruce squeezed his shoulder. 

“I sometimes wonder if Zod’s possession made things worse. I can’t imagine being taken over by such a malevolent spirit. Could it have triggered his meteor psychosis?”

“Clark…”

“I know, I know, but I can’t help it, Bruce. Zod was my fault, too! If Lex hadn’t been my friend, hadn’t been in Smallville…”

Bruce gently held his trembling lover, regrets lacing the air like the smell of apples in an autumn orchard. Clark’s arms slid around his back. They stood in silence for several minutes, then broke apart. 

Bruce spoke softly. “We can’t help our old friends sometimes, Clark. You lost Lex to insanity and I lost Harvey. They couldn’t help themselves.”

Clark sighed. “I know. They had no choice, but…evil like Lionel’s…” Clark shook his head. He looked with wide eyes at Bruce. “He was there the night my father died. Fighting with Lionel triggered his heart attack; I know it did! He killed Ollie’s parents. He killed…”

“If there’s a hell, Clark, he’s in it.” Bruce’s eyes glittered. “He won’t hurt anyone again, not you, nor anyone you love, ever again.”

They turned and walked away from the freshly-packed grave, a chill sweeping through the cemetery as an owl hooted.

% % % % % %

Note: The Veritas membership except for Thomas and Martha was detailed in _Traveler_ and got me to thinking after I learned that Lionel had them all killed, including Ollie Queen’s parents. What would be the irony of Lionel hiring Joe Chill to kill the Waynes that night in Crime Alley, and Lex would hire a gunman to kill Julian in the same way? Not to mention that Lionel not only killed the parents of Green Arrow, but created the Batman as well. 


End file.
